Millennial bizarreness (early morning journaling in March)

It’s been a weird week overall. Good in some ways, odd in others. Last night proved a bit irritating thanks to two people walking out on me, one being a man I agreed to meet for a drink from a dating site who got bent out of shape immediately because he didn’t like my choice of bar to meet at (in his neighborhood, attempting to accommodate him — my bad — complained that he was the only white man there) and then took issue with my stating that I had met a couple other people as well and had prospects in mind. Should’ve just texted and called off the meeting, he said. Okay, fair enough, though I clearly stated beforehand I’m mostly looking to meet new friends and to see where things might lead thereafter. He then told me how his last date went a year back where he and a woman went out and got drunk, he took her to his home where she fell in his bathroom and broke the toilet and later didn’t offer to pay for the repairs. That sounds like a shitty date. Then he got up and marched out, all within about 12 minutes of us meeting. Kind of odd, but oh well. Yeah, I had a weird gut feeling to begin with and probably shouldn’t have agreed to meet in person. Was just an awkward and pointless outing with a middle-aged accountant — chalking it up to “nevermind that.”

But afterward I had agreed to meet up with a barpal I’ve been getting to know a bit (totally platonically) over the past month. That guy is 30, formerly in the military and currently a student, and the times we’ve met up before we’ve discussed religion, politics and philosophy (and played a little pool also). He had texted me to invite me up to the local tavern, and since that other meeting went so poorly, I figured sure, why not? My phone was doing some weird stuff that got me wondering if it had gotten infected (pop-ups pertaining to TouchTunes despite not using that app that day), which I was trying to sort out upon arrival. Not in the greatest mood starting out, looking forward to relaxing and engaging in interesting conversation with someone I’m already somewhat familiar with. Great. Well, the energy started off feeling awkward and uncomfortable, partly due to my mood since my technology was acting up and that accountant had seemed offended that he wasn’t the only person I had agreed to meet with from the dating site (which kinda boggled my mind), but also partly due to this barpal’s mood. He’s normally pretty high-strung and a bit argumentative, but in a quiet bar we’ve managed to converse and have it feel fruitful, so I figured we’d each calm down and the night could mellow out. But the music was loud and he was talking a mile a minute, starting off with military topics before abruptly turning the conversation to sex.

Not sure how or why that conversation came up, but I was only 2 beers into the evening by that point, so we’re not talking about a natural evolution of the conversation over the course of a long night between two drunks. No, we were talking about SJWs and their propaganda, and then I mentioned what happened that evening and also how my dating life was going, and right there he brought up anal sex, at first seeming to be joking but then refusing to let the topic go. He apparently wanted to get across his opinion that anal sex is important in all relations, even hetero relations, and that we women need to get with the program. I stated that that strikes me as an opinion influenced by porn viewing and that not all of us are into that sort of thing. He kept cutting me off and really trying to drill home his point that too many men are “homophobic,” that being their reason for not being open to the practice. He also took issue with my reference to anal sex as a “kink,” a word he seemed to be offended by. He kept bringing up homosexuals and jabbered about changing norms and spoke rather derisively about “the vag” (as he put it).

Admittedly, my head started to spin since he’s so talkative and interrupts constantly and came across kind of aggressively on a topic that I just didn’t care about and had no real interest in discussing further. Told him that I don’t see the big deal, that when it comes to people’s sexuality it can’t help but be subjectively assessed, that our personal preferences are our own and so be it. To which he then bizarrely mentioned how racist views are personal preferences too, as if that in any way related to the topic. Like, what? I didn’t understand why this seemed to matter to him so much and why he seemed so offended that I took a different view of the matter. It’s not as if I was pulling out my pitchfork and castigating him for his views, yet he was taking issue with my “vanilla” ones, in a neighborhood pub early on a Thursday evening. Turned to him and point-blank said: “You do you.” Find someone who’s into that and that’ll be cool. No worries. But it’s not for everybody. We don’t all have to see this the same way. Beyond that, the music is loud and I can’t hear what all he’s saying well enough and I don’t wish to keep on discussing this in a place where others are around and my voice has a tendency to carry. He kept on, so I then stated that I don’t find this conversation interesting. He then got up, looking pretty irritated, and said something about how I seem to be getting upset and turned to walk out. I requested that we step outside where it’s quieter and I can smoke so that we can settle whatever this issue is, but he acted pretty smarmy and walked away instead. Okay. That too was weird.

Wasn’t sure what to make of that. This young man was upset because I wasn’t receptive to the type of sex he’s into? All right, but he and I are not lovers, nor have we ever even flirted. I thought we hung out so as to chat about ideas and to tell one another about things we saw or read online primarily or to talk about atheism. Beyond that, berating someone over their sexual preferences is no way to entice them to lean toward your own. Struck me as a strange tactic. He kept referring to my claim of different sexual preferences being okay as a “logical fallacy,” which he wouldn’t elaborate on. Was such a weird topic that I couldn’t understand what he was driving at. What was he hoping to accomplish with any of it? Who cares if someone else isn’t into anal sex the way you are? And just because other men may not be doesn’t mean they are automatically “homophobic” or repressing their desires.

Quite frankly, it was like talking with an SJW of another stripe. My way or the highway. Agree with me or I’ll walk. If your views differ, your views must be ignorant. He had kept implying that I lacked sufficient experience with anal sex so therefore my perspective wasn’t as valid as his. That’s a very strange take on the matter, IMO. Must one engage in a behavior however many times in order to form an opinion about it? I guess I don’t grasp the hang-up here or his intensity over the topic. What does it matter? Again, we’re not lovers and I’m not condemning him for his own preference. I just don’t happen to share it. That’s reason to get up and abandon one’s beer and walk out?

Left me scratching my head on all that. Didn’t make any sense. Not sure what the hell was up with yesterday evening, but what a waste of time applying makeup to come out to deal with all of that. Finished my own drink and headed home, calling it a night. My bartender lady-friend assumed he wanted something I made obvious he wouldn’t receive from me, but his approach sucked regardless. There’s no shifting hearts and minds with that attitude. Though, no, I’m not the one to target for such fetish play. Call it whatever you want, it’s a kink to me, and that’s fine. You all can do whatever you’re going to do, but the rest of us don’t have to follow suit.

What’s up with this idea that because people’s preferences differ that that somehow is a threat to your own? Can it truly be offensive that someone else says “to each his or her own”? I told him that what adults choose to do is between them — I don’t care. What’s the problem with that?

See, what gets to me here is this notion that people are no longer satisfied with their preferences being merely tolerated — they now feel the need to impose them on others, to try to pressure you to adopt their own. That’s so weird to me. Why do that? You have your freedom, now go enjoy it. I’m not trying to stop you. Not even trying to talk you out of it. So, again, what’s the real problem here? The need for validation? That’s not my concern. He seemed to be trying to frame the matter as if I’m sexually naive and/or inexperienced, which just goes to show he doesn’t know me that well and is operating with erroneous assumptions. Beyond that, a person doesn’t need to experience everything to a great degree before recognizing their limitations and comfort levels. THAT is where some millennials and I part ways since there does seem to be this huge hedonistic push for us all to take everything as far as possible. But why? I took things far enough to grasp that that orientation toward life and living actually comes with drawbacks and unforeseen consequences, and that too is a valid perspective that I have earned over time. He kept saying the word “taboo,” as if anal sex remains so terribly taboo by this point in our society. It’s not the taboo that impacts my judgment there, as stated to him, it’s my own desires. That is a valid assertion because this is a subjective matter. I get to determine what I like to do with my own body. How is that difficult to accept?

That topic came up after he had talked about the military’s “SJW propaganda” whereby the male enlistees were instructed about how a woman saying no early in the evening cannot and should not be reversed into a yes later in the evening after the female consumed much alcohol. While I agree with him that we women do possess agency and probably shouldn’t drink ourselves blind drunk around people we don’t trust to care about our best interests, he was really angry about that topic. Yes, sexuality is tricky terrain, both in and out of the military. There are no clear-cut easy answers there that can be applied universally. Very much a situation one has to feel out for him/herself in every encounter. And yes, alcohol can and does lead to some bad decisions and then consequent regrets the next day, particularly among young people. Do we not see this clearly by now? He seemed angry that women get to change their minds, and I took the position that we all are entitled to change our minds throughout the evening. If I say yes earlier on, but then decide no, stop, no further, I retain that right. Though I should work hard to not put myself in such positions as that since, again, you’re dealing with very tricky terrain, especially when alcohol and sexuality is involved. None of which I was able to thoroughly elaborate on since he kept interrupting everything I tried to say.

Hmmm. I have some odd conversations with some odd folks sometimes. Not terribly uncommon. Gotten used to them over time, but they still do leave me wondering about humanity. As in, where is this all heading? What are our priorities here? What’s the goal in pushing these boundaries? Just to do so? How little do we even care about one another? Is this just another manifestation of our sense of alienation? I said the word “intimacy” last night and he abruptly stopped me and asked what that even means. That strikes me as rather sad if that was intended as a serious question. Have we lost our way entirely by now? Do young people truly struggle with the concept of intimacy? Is that too becoming a relic of a bygone era?

Dumb bar conversations probably shouldn’t consume this much of my mental energy, but it can’t be helped. Humans confuse me — always have and likely always will, in all settings. I can’t help but ponder this sort of stuff, which is probably why I’m better off finding more productive things to do than getting wrapped up in seemingly pointless conversations with bewildering people. But I like to think that conversing is key, that we must communicate with one another in order to make better sense of life and living. But…some days it feels like a lost cause and like we’re all already doomed. Pessimism on my part, sure, but I can’t see where all of this is heading anywhere worthwhile, at least not during my lifetime. Push, push, push is all we seem to know how to do anymore. Argue and pressure and deride and sarcastically and passive-aggressively agitate one another appears to be all the rage. Why can’t we be satisfied with exploring our own freedom instead of constantly worrying with what everybody else is doing? Why do we feel the need for others to join in and to do as we do? I take it as a sign that individuality hasn’t taken root deeply enough, particularly for the youngest among us. You do you. You don’t need millions of others doing exactly as you do. Hell, I wouldn’t advocate for others to follow in my footsteps — in some respects quite the opposite. Because not all lifestyles can be universally appreciated or experienced in a healthy manner. C’est la vie.

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Quotes

"Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true." -- Demosthenes (350 B.C.E.)

"A man is incapable of comprehending any argument that interferes with his revenue." -- René Descartes (1650)

"Our beliefs are not automatically updated by the best evidence available. They often have an active life of their own and fight tenaciously for their own survival." -- D. Marks and R. Kammann

"Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true." -- Francis Bacon

"If we are uncritical we shall always find what we want: we shall look for, and find, confirmations, and we shall look away from, and not see, whatever might be dangerous to our pet theories. In this way it is only too easy to obtain what appears to be overwhelming evidence in favour of a theory which, if approached critically, would have been refuted." -- Karl Popper (The Poverty of Historicism)

“We’re not on our journey to save the world but to save ourselves. But in doing that, you save the world. The influence of a vital person vitalizes.” ― Joseph Campbell

"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house." -- George Carlin

"He that is not aware of his ignorance will only be misled by his knowledge." -- Richard Whately

"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." -- Robert Openheimer

"Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves." -- T. S. Eliot

"Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist." -- Kenneth Boulding, economist

"The intellectuals and the young, booted and spurred, feel themselves born to ride us." -- Eric Hoffer

"Oh God, how did I get into this room with all these weird people?" -- Stewart Brand

"Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." -- George Orwell

"Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' But conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but because conscience tells one it is right." -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"A truth's initial commotion is directly proportional to how deeply the lie was believed. It wasn't the world being round that agitated people, but that the world wasn't flat. When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic." -- Dresden James

"Examine the records of history, recollect what has happened within the circle of your own experience, consider with attention what has been the conduct of almost all the greatly unfortunate, either in private or public life, whom you may have either read of, or hear of, or remember, and you will find that the misfortunes of by far the greater part of them have arisen from their not knowing when they were well, when it was proper for them to set still and to be contented." -- Adam Smith

"A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user." -- Theodore Roosevelt

"No one can be good for long if goodness is not in demand." -- Bertolt Brecht

"No man was ever so much deceived by another as by himself." -- Lord Greville

"I find war detestable but those who praise it without participating in it even more so." -- Romain Rolland

"Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create money and control credit." -- Sir Josiah Stamp, president of the Bank of England (1927)

"Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce." -- James A. Garfield

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." -- Upton Sinclair

"Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles." -- Patrick Henry

"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies." -- Friedrich Nietzsche

"Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value." -- Albert Einstein

"The more efficient a force is, the more silent and the more subtle it is. Love is the subtlest force in the world. The law of love governs the world. Life persists in the face of death. The universe continues in spite of destruction going on. Truth triumphs over untruth. Love conquers hate." -- Mahatma Gandhi

"Whoever tells the truth is chased out of nine villages." -- Turkish proverb

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." -- Anais Nin

"We were created to love and be loved." -- Mother Teresa of Calcutta

"Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed." -- Mahatma Gandhi

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use." -- Galileo Galilei

"This is the average man, and he is right in his anxiousness, because it is a matter of the fathers and mothers of all the terrors he is bringing to this world in the form of Communism and H-bombs, and last but not least by his fertility and the inevitable overpopulation." -- Carl Jung (Letters Vol. II, Pages 496-497)

"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests." -- Patrick Henry

"Freedom is participation in power." -- Cicero, Roman orator

"The world is full enough of hurts and mischance without wars to multiply them." -- J.R.R. Tolkien

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." -- Albert Einstein

"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear." -- Thomas Jefferson

"In the beginning of change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for it then costs nothing to be a patriot." -- Mark Twain

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius, and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction." -- Albert Einstein

"A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable." -- Thomas Jefferson (1817)

"You don't stick a knife in a man's back nine inches, and then pull it out six inches, and say you're making progress." -- Malcolm X

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." -- George Santayana

"Ignorance is not bliss---it's oblivion." -- Phillip Wylie

"Find out just what the people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." -- Frederick Douglass

“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism.” -- Franklin D. Roosevelt (1938)

"Superstition, which is widespread among the nations, has taken advantage of human weakness to cast its spell over the mind of almost every man." -- Cicero

"We shall have World Government, whether or not we like it. The only question is whether World Government will be achieved by conquest or consent." -- James Warburg (1950)

"Patriotism is the conviction that your country is superior to all others because you were born in it." -- George Bernard Shaw

"There are a lot of exiles in this world. Each one has his own reason; we have ours. Long before we left America, the America we knew left us. We travel not to get away from it, but to find it." -- Bill Bonner, expatriate

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious convictions." -- Blaise Pascal

"The gods mercifully gave mankind this little moment of peace between the religious fanaticisms of the past and the fanaticisms of class and race that were speedily to arise and dominate time to come." -- G. M. Trevelyan

"Truth does not do so much good in the world as the appearance of it does evil." -- Duc François de La Rochefoucauld

"So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money?" -- Ayn Rand

“It was not accidental; it was a carefully contrived occurrence. The international Bankers sought to bring about a condition of despair here so that they might emerge as rulers of us all.” -- Louis McFadden referring to the Great Depression (1930s)

"What is the robbing of a bank compared to the founding of a bank?" -- Bertolt Brecht

"I sincerely believe … that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale." -- Thomas Jefferson (1816)

"The true friend of property, the true conservative, is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth; who insists that the creature of man’s making shall be the servant and not the master of the man who made it. The citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have themselves called into being." -- Theodore Roosevelt (1910)

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." -- Aldous Huxley

"It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or it is not, believed by a majority of the people." -- Giordano Bruno

"We are at the parting of the ways. We have, not one or two or three, but many, established and formidable monopolies in the United States. We have, not one or two, but many, fields of endeavor into which it is difficult, if not impossible, for the independent man to enter. We have restricted credit, we have restricted opportunity, we have controlled development, and we have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated, governments in the civilized world — no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and the duress of small groups of dominant men." -- Woodrow Wilson (1913)

“The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in time of great moral crises, maintain their neutrality.” -- Dante Alighieri (The Inferno)

"Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini

"The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws." -- Ayn Rand

"The tyrant grinds down his slaves and they don't turn against him; they crush those beneath them." -- Emily Bronte

"Only a government that is rich and safe can afford to be a democracy, for democracy is the most expensive and nefarious kind of government ever heard of on earth." -- Mark Twain

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." -- Benjamin Franklin

"A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury." -- Alexander Tyler

"The things that will destroy America are prosperity at any price, peace at any price, safety first instead of duty first, the love of soft living and the get rich quick theory of life." -- Theodore Roosevelt

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter, and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." -- Abraham Lincoln

"If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." -- James Madison

"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell

"When people who are honestly mistaken learn the truth, they will either cease being mistaken, or cease being honest." -- Anonymous

"Some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party." -- Winston Churchill

"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes … known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare." -- James Madison (Political Observations, 1795)

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." -- Samuel Adams

“The purpose of the law is not to prevent a future offense, but to punish the one actually committed.” -- Ayn Rand

"Preventive war was an invention of Hitler. Frankly, I would not even listen to anyone seriously that came and talked about such a thing." -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

"Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." -- Hermann Goering, Hitler's designated successor

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." -- C. S. Lewis

"To be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of ignorance." -- Amos Bronson Alcott

"People like us, who believe in physics, know that distinctions between past, present and future is only a stubborn, persistent illusion." -- Albert Einstein

"The way that can be told is not the eternal way." -- Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching)

“The minute you read something that you can't understand, you can almost be sure that it was drawn up by a lawyer.” -- Will Rogers

"A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself." -- Joseph Pulitzer (1904)

"Madness is rare in individuals -- but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule." -- Friedrich Nietzsche

“Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the﻿ power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and to form one that suits them better. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may make their own of such territory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority intermingling with or near them who oppose their movement.” –- Abraham Lincoln (1848)

"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home." -- James Madison

"We need a Jeffersonian revolution. If it doesn't happen, our democracy will continue to weaken and things will get worse. Right now, we have a two-party electoral dictatorship with each party looking for the highest corporate bidder." -- Ralph Nader

“We are not blind! We are men and women with eyes and brains… and we don’t have to be driven hither and thither by the blind workings of The Market, or of History, or of Progress, or of any other abstraction.” -- Fritz Schumacher

"Being confirmed by others frees me from being responsible for the absurdity of my belief." -- Theodor Geiger

"The defeats and victories of the fellows at the top aren't always defeats and victories for the fellows at the bottom.” -- Bertolt Brecht

"The task of weaning various people and groups from the national nipple will not be easy. The sound of whines, bawls, screams and invective will fill the air as the agony of withdrawal pangs finds voice." -- Linda Bowles

"We can now do what we want, and the only question is what do we want? At the end of our progress we stand where Adam and Eve once stood: all we are faced with now is the moral question." -- Max Frisch

"The truth is not only stranger than you imagine, it is stranger than you can imagine." -- J.B.S. Haldane

"If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is---infinite." -- William Blake

"In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted." -- Bertrand Russell

"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you." -- Friedrich Nietzsche

"[...] let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us." -- part of Hebrews 12:1 (NLT)